The TED conference (“Technology, Entertainment, Design”) is responsible for some of the most fascinating speeches ever given, from the likes of Al Gore, Bill Gates, the Googlers, Richard Dawkins, and my personal favorite, Chef Dan Barber. They’re sort of the innovative step-brother of PBS and NPR–the best of American public programming.

But while they’ve been able to achieve widespread acclaim and success through their Internet-only distribution, they’re also limiting their audience to, well, those who have high-speed Internet access. The TED Open TV Project changes that by allowing broadcast TV stations to play the “TEDTalks” for free, widening the audience for the speeches to a whole new population.

With the Open TV Project, TED hopes to give millions more people around the world access to TEDTalks — especially in developing nations where internet access and computer ownership are low. The project will place particular focus on partnerships with TV stations in regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America where bandwidth is severely limited.

TED has already arranged to supply Open TV Project programming to TV stations in Argentina, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Pakistan, the Philippines, Portugal, Sweden and the United States, among others. And TED is actively seeking broadcast partners who share its goal of spreading ideas. Content is available to TV stations starting this month.